In there a way to edit shaders in Generations? I managed to unpack 31mb of something called "shaders", but in the end, after unpacking of ARs it's just a bunch of 1kb files with three lines that makes sense and everything else is garbage symbols.

In there a way to edit shaders in Generations? I managed to unpack 31mb of something called "shaders", but in the end, after unpacking of ARs it's just a bunch of 1kb files with three lines that makes sense and everything else is garbage symbols.

Yep, those are the shaders. You'll need to decompile them and figure out what they are/what each one does.

I'm afraid most of the objects you guys mentioned are boss scripted events, mostly hardcoded I think. Some of the warp events are called via LUA scripts, and well... they're just usable with boss stages and the actual boss there.

I don't remember any warps in the time eater though. I've tried using the Sky Sanctuary warp thing, and it looks a bit jarring. I can't get it to stop at the right spot, and you can see Sonic traverse through the whole black level... I could try increasing the speed so it's almost instant, but then it would go so fast it would go past the warp end thing... I'm not sure how to do it yet.

The problem with paths is that I don't think the game has the option of doing something like that... so I'm unsure on what else could be used.

In there a way to edit shaders in Generations? I managed to unpack 31mb of something called "shaders", but in the end, after unpacking of ARs it's just a bunch of 1kb files with three lines that makes sense and everything else is garbage symbols.

It's possible the "garbage symbols" are pre-compiled HLSL/D3D shader byte code. It's common for some games to do this to increase runtime performance of shaders (where if you pass an uncompiled shader to the runtime, you'll generally have to wait for it to compile).

I'm pretty sure the shaders are GPU code. If you can fully decipher/decode that you deserve tech member status for life.

I think it's possible to decompile these shaders into asm-like code, or even back into HLSL. The problem is to compile them back after editing, so the game can understand it.
Well, anyway, I just want to disable bloom, blur and DOF. I found that #SystemCommon.ar.00/SceneEffects.prm.xml file, but noticed almost no changes in game after editing it. May be it affects console versions only.

Well, anyway, I just want to disable bloom, blur and DOF. I found that #SystemCommon.ar.00/SceneEffects.prm.xml file, but noticed almost no changes in game after editing it. May be it affects console versions only.

That's because the stages override the files with their own definitions. You should look at the same file SceneEffect.prm.xml for each stage.

My guess would be performance. If you're far away enough that all the stuff in the first chunk of the level doesn't render, technically it should help (items and stage geometry) with the framerate... Except it manages to lag anyway, but maybe it lagged worse before.

Although in terms of the PC port project, I guess it couldn't hurt, but it may not exactly fit together very well either. It's like trying to merge Emerald Coast 1 and 2 in Sonic Adventure, until you realize that the second half would be mostly under water, if the entrance of the second section was properly lined up with the exit of the first section. Or similarly, it's like trying to merge all the sections of Station Square... until—if I recall correctly—things start overlapping.

Moving chunks is far more complicated than it sounds. In theory maybe I could move the terrain, but then I have to move all the objects, the object targets, the paths(and I don't really know how to read them correctly yet). Plus, performance would be a problem, although in theory chunk-loading / unloading should be able to solve that.

Also for a shocker, Adabat has even bad performance on the PC version anyway. (nearing the big chaser running part) It needs some serious optimization or material changes or something, I'm not sure yet.

Starting from this http://forums.sonicr...ic=25598&st=315 I can see there were succesful audio replacements.
My issue is about repacking the ADX files into AAX;
Basicaly, AAX files for main stages contain and ADX for the intro, and an ADX for the main loop.

Having converted them and done all that needs to be done, I need to repack the ADXs into an AAX, but that part seems to be completely lost, and I think azu mentioned using adxenc, which is only to do WAV -> ADX.
What should I do now? I'm a bit lost.

Minor update to Generations Archive Editor: archive code is now in Ar00Lib.dll, there's now a separate command-line program Ar00Pack, any bugs with the /t argument have hopefully been fixed, and "split mode" is automatically enabled for filenames ending in ".ar.00". Also the source code is available.